


Daniel's Dilemma

by BlueLightningAndNexus



Series: Blue Lightning and Nexus' Multiverse [10]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Swap, Body Transfer, Fantasy, Fantasy World, Functional Magic, Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24852301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueLightningAndNexus/pseuds/BlueLightningAndNexus
Summary: A short part of a novel I'm probably not gonna write.In this world, certain people have the gift of Fusion and Defusion, allowing them to combine and dismantle materials, even intangible objects such as one's soul or mind. Such people are enrolled in the military at a young age. Daniel Gensai is a gifted Fuser, but in an ambush, his body is destroyed and he's forced to transfer his consciousness into a younger body.
Series: Blue Lightning and Nexus' Multiverse [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1798072
Comments: 2





	Daniel's Dilemma

This could not be happening.  
To repeat, this could **not** be happening.  
The day started off completely normal, Daniel Gensai thought to himself. Waking up, putting on his badge and uniform, coming to work. 

But after that…it all started to go to shit. That kid, Dusk Icon, the 15-year old murderer and vigilante who attacked two members of Madelina’s military for weapons last month, appeared. He had perfected Defusion far beyond anything Daniel saw with his own two eyes, far beyond what most adults should be capable of, let alone teenagers. 

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, he went from a normal weekday, to hunting down some kid who might as well be a living weapon of mass destruction, to being the kid in a cold, cramped, stuffy room. 

“Alright, Du—Daniel, is there anything else you remember?”

The commanding officer was an older man, first name Arnold. The surname slipped from Daniel’s exhausted, confused mind. 

“Aside from having my arm cut off, my chest sliced open, watching my friends die, killing some teenager with the last ounce of my strength, and fusing my mind with his body as a last resort while repairing the tissue damage so I would continue living?”

“Yes.”

“No. No, I don’t remember much besides that.” An awkward silence. “In fact, I think that kind of covers everything.”

He leaned back in his metal chair, the front legs coming off the ground slightly, but the side of Daniel’s cheek skimmed a cold, uncomfortable metal. He turned his head slightly to the side and found himself staring down the blade of another officer’s drawn sword. 

Daniel sighed. 

“Is this really necessary.”

“What?” The officer across from the interrogation table asked. “Oh, the sword pointed at you.”

“No, the humidity—yes the sword pointed at my face!”

“Well, no need to get feisty,” he replied, scribbling something down on a thick pile of official military papers and nonchalantly closing the folder they were contained in. “After all, I’m sure you understand why this is so concerning for us.”

“For you!?” Daniel questioned. “I’m the one trapped in some random kid’s body! Actually, random might not be the right word. This is the body of a kid that tried to kill several of our men in the last few weeks.”

“Yes, I’ve been reading this file in front of me. Apparently this Icon boy had some…issues that plagued his preteen years.”

“Issues, huh?” Daniel replied in the voice of the man—no, the boy—who, for all intents and purposes, destroyed his body. 

“Yes, that would be correct sir.”

“Like, say, oh, I don’t know…killing two officers last month.”

“Yep, that sounds like a good example to me.”

To an outsider listening in on the conversation, silence seemed to be Daniel’s trademark. They were not wrong. 

“…and you don’t believe me?”

“What makes you say that?” the officer replied, completely unaware of just how obvious his artificial stupidity was. 

“Well, for starters, I was a 24-year old man as of this morning, a lieutenant in fact, and now I’m being treated like a wanted murderer.”

This man raised a sly, unconcerned eyebrow, gray with age and weariness, at Daniel. “…in the eyes of the law—as much as it pains me to say—you essentially are a murderer, Gensai.”

“I’m living in the body of a murderer, sir. I’m not one myself.”

Commander What’s-His-Face opened up the file again, flipping a page in the thick packet of information and pointing at a sentence Daniel couldn’t quite make out. “It says that you used a defusion technique of your own to, uh, tear apart the flesh of our young Dusk Icon here, at least on his chest.”

Daniel awkwardly bobbed his head, his finger tracing through the thin shirt he was wearing over a scar on this boy’s pale flesh. 

“Wait,” Commander What’s-His-Face said, “didn’t you just tell me about a minute ago that you had to use the last of your strength to kill this boy?”

Daniel said nothing. This conversation was going nowhere, and the Commander was right: his accidental contradiction was certainly casting a shadow on the legitimacy of the afternoon’s events. 

“Tell me…how many instances of Fusing the body and mind of two different individuals have you ever experienced?”

“Approximately zero, sir.”

“Hmm, yes, that does make sense, you seem rather new at this whole thing. Have you ever read about it?”

Like a teenager getting lectured by his middle-aged father on sneaking out of the house, Daniel sank back into his chair, allowing the metal legs to gently fall back to the floor. “Give or take, zero, sir,” he replied glumly. 

“Hm, yes. Did you ever even think this was possible before this afternoon?”

“I really can’t say, sir,” Daniel calmly answered. “I never really thought about it.”

“Yet you performed it quite smoothly about…” Arnold checked his watch, “…two and a half hours ago.”

“Well, it was a spur of the moment thing,” Daniel retorted in a high, unfamiliar voice that wasn’t quite his and wasn’t quite the voice of the body he inhabited either. “Plus, I wouldn’t say it was smooth…I mean, I was about 20 seconds away from dying of blood loss.”

“Mhm.”

“On account of having my, uh, arm chopped off,” Daniel said, awkwardly gesturing to his left arm. 

“Yes, I read the file.” 

The officer holding a sword uncomfortably close to Daniel’s face was getting pretty sick of this conversation, maybe as much as Daniel himself was. 

“Lieutenant Gensai, sir, the fact of the matter is that any higher-ups that hear about this, which they probably will in a matter of hours, will find the whole situation incredibly unlikely.” The officer’s voice sounded familiar to Daniel, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it. 

“We were completely unaware that such a precise application of Fusion was even possible, let alone fusing your own mind with the body of someone else. Nothing about this makes any sense, and from what I’ve heard, you’re not 100% sure how you did it. From what I’ve heard about you, you’re quite smart, a real practical, logical thinker.”

The man’s voice was stern yet soft like silk, and Daniel allowed himself to tilt his head slightly, getting a look at the officer and his bright blue eyes, shining like sapphires in the night. 

“You must realize that, to the majority of people, this must look like some foolish trick on Dusk Icon’s part to infiltrate Madelina’s military. You realize this, right?” The man was tall and thin, around Daniel’s age, but you couldn’t tell at first glance: the youthful vigor in his eyes, his strong physique, and his lively voice all fit together but contrasted with his white hair, indicative of a false age. 

Next to him stood another man. Well, barely even a man. He was on the shorter side, bulkier and more muscular, his voice thin, clear, and plain with youth, maybe 18 at the most.  
“I think I recognize you two officers,” Daniel spoke, largely unfazed by the thin slice of steel pricking his neck. “You’re Captain Distorters, aren’t you both?”

The taller of the two let out a quick, dry chuckle. “God, I wish,” he muttered under his breath. The shorter of the two gave him a quick glance, then turned to face Daniel for the first time. “I’m a Captain Distorter, yes. I’m Kaito.” It was a short, to-the-point introduction and it was all Daniel needed. 

A satisfied grin materialized on Daniel’s face. “Yes, I thought so. I’ve only seen you from a distance, but you match the descriptions.”

“The descriptions?” Kaito inquired. 

“Of being short, angry-looking and muscular,” the other officer replied instantly. Kaito’s scowl deepened, and he looked to Daniel, only to find affirmation. 

“He’s actually 100% correct, sir,” Daniel told him. 

Commander Arnold What’s-His-Face stood up from his seat, a soft, hollow chuckle leaving his lips as he walked out the door. Better to leave these three to decide what needs to be done than get involved myself. 

Kaito rolled his eyes, folding his arms and leaning against the metal door of the room, detaching himself from the conversation entirely. Katri chuckled. 

“I’m Katri Fukata,” the other man replied. “I’m not a Captain Distorter, yet. But I do recall you at the cleanup in Linga from last year.”

Daniel averted his eyes to his strangely slender arms and unfamiliar, pale hands. Katri awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. “Well, not this body, no, but I recall your name from the report.”  
“That makes much more sense.”

“Look, we can’t possibly return Mr. Gensai to his previous body,” Kaito piped up. “I visited the site with the other Captains on the way here. It’s damaged beyond repair, and it’s missing too much blood to be of any use. Plus, uh, the left arm’s gone, like he said,” Kaito told Katri while gesturing towards Daniel. 

Daniel awkwardly rubbed his left forearm, the pain of the attack burnt into his nerves, even in another body. He doubted he would forget that feeling anytime soon and he doubted he would forget the feeling of discomfort and violation at hearing his body referred to as an “it”. 

“The fact of the matter is that, whatever we do, we need to keep quiet about him,” the Captain Distorter told Katri. He looked down at Daniel, and even without the sword of the other man, he was equally intimidating, possibly more. His perpetually hateful eyes were burning holes into Daniel’s head, and Kaito maintained unblinking, unsettling eye contact with Daniel as he spoke. 

“I’m not even sure I completely believe his story. It feels too convenient.”

“You saw the scar on my chest and the bloody, armless body of my old self,” Daniel spoke up without hesitation. “I’m not sure I would describe the situation as convenient.” 

“Hush, the adults are talking,” Kaito immediately spat back. 

“Aren’t you 18 years old?”

“Still legally an adult, Gensai.”

“Both of you, shut up,” Katri growled, his blue eyes looking Daniel up and down. He sighed, looking up at the black, steel ceiling, an idea going through his head. 

“I think I have a place to hide you away but let you rise through the ranks. It’s going to be frustrating, but it’s the only way I can think of that doesn’t involve the Madelina government executing you.”

“I’m up for any options,” Daniel replied without hesitation. 

“Ok, good,” Katri spoke as he slipped his hands in his pockets, “because you’re _really_ not going to like this.”


End file.
